Microsoft Surface 2 Review

0.phoneArena29 Oct 2013, 06:47posted on

Armed with some significant upgrades, this year’s Microsoft Surface 2 is hoping to be a more well-rounded offering in the hopes that it can tangle with the greats in the space. Note that what we're dealing with here is the $450 Surface 2, which runs Windows RT (meaning there's no support for legacy Windows software)...

This is a discussion for a review. To read the whole review, click here

The new Baytrail-T atoms kill the old ones, the integrated gpu is good enough to play old pc game and pretty much every not intensive one + most emulators (PC emulators are far more advanced than android one, the n64 one is near perfect)

Please stop comparing WinRt with Real Windows (your desktop and the Atom 3770 you mentioned). Win RT serves to compete agains iOS and Android. It's supposed to be light weight fanless and app centric. It's what I want! I already have a laptop and a desktop with "Real Windows".

It doesn't even cost any more $... I see no reason to buy an RT tablet over a $400-$500 Baytrail-T with a solid state drive, 2-4gb ddr3 ram, 64bit x86 cpu that can run virtually any windows application, much better gpu too, I think its like 6-7x more powerful than the original atom they used with the crappy power vr. Now its based of ivy bridge desktop integrated.

Some stuff I have seen it run: Leauge of Legends, civilization 4 (5 has some lag but it is playable) and minecraft.

I see some point in your comment, but benchmarks shows that Baytrail's GPU isn't as powerful as you say. Anandtechs's benchmarks delivered performance on par with Apple's A6X. In the best scenarios for Intel it came only close to Tegra 4's or Snapdragon 800's GPU, in other cases it lost by a 50% margin.

It's based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, indeed, but it has only 4 EUs, the performance is far from stellar.

That being said, as I really don't care about tablet gaming, I would love to see a Lumia 2520/Surface 2 like tablet running Atom Z3770.

This is just part of the 3DMark benchmark. It does not say much, as you can see it wrecking the HD8330, a card that beats it on every single other test by a large margin.

Looking sharply at other tests, exactly as I said it's on par with Apple A6X's PowerVR card, which is itself positioned between Adreno 320 and Adreno 330 in most cases. It falls short to Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800's Adreno 330.

This is not a bad result by any means, it just not as you said on your original post. BayTrail Intel HD graphics isn't a ''much better GPU" compared to Surface 2's Tegra 4 or Lumia 2520's Adreno 330, its slower.

With Windows RT I can open the Pandora site and have the music playing in the background, while I have two other apps running at the same time. No premium ($$) app required for that. The same goes for Youtube. Or basicly any other site, in the very same way you would do on a desktop computer.

I can actually keep watching my movies and still reply that perky mail that arrived, no need for closing it all. I can work on my papers on Office and quickly popup Internet Explorer for a quick glance at the dictionary.

Having apps is good, but by no means my experience in Windows RT is cramped by the lack of them. In fact, it feels better them OS's with tons of apps for asian breasts and stuff.

Ecosystem?

Ecosystem does not means only having a big number of 'tablet optimized apps'. Ecosystem stands for the whole, the basic system, it's programs, it's hardware capabilities, it support for other platforms and environments. On a Surface 2 I can hook pretty much every piece of hardware I have in my house to the USB port and it will work. My printer and external HD are quite pleased by that.

-

It also feels quite snappy. On the Modern UI instance it feels pretty much as fast as my Core i5 latptop with an ordinary 5400RPM HD.

I quite like Windows RT, people really should give it a chance before screaming 'apps' and running away. It does media consumption in a overally good way, it does productivity better than other systems.

I also agree. The problem with the Surface 2 isn't the real competition (android, ios)...it's the Surface Pro 2. What matters is the direct competition being IOS and Android. A good friend of mine with her iPad summed it up quite well. She said...I don't know what to do with it... all I do is play games on it.... that's great.... but I have an android phone for that...I bought this tablet for Microsoft word, to stream flash videos like the Colbert Report etch etc... and in that regard this works like a charm... the thing I was most happy with is the app selection (I know I know give me a chance)... the UI is impeccable and it has apps in every category. Do I miss Candy Crush? Yes, but again that's why I have my phone. Everything from the news apps, the economist, cooking apps, they all look and run incredibly. I snapped a photo the other day.... turned out pretty rotten... then I slapped myself and said why the hell are you taking phone on a tablet dummy. So for this review... ok... give it an 8...but I bet secretly John V won't ever want to go back to another tablet again if it means him actually getting something done on it. Just JMO. :-P

Why are they still talking about Android still not having that many tablet optimized apps? Do they really still not have that many? I'm asking the commentators not phonearena since phonearena makes some ridiculous claims at times. When I had a tablet most of the apps looked fantastic on it, and that was when the Asus Transformer TF201 came out. Plus now we have phones with the same resolution as a lot of tablets, so I imagine there's even more apps that look good on the general android tablet since the apps are being optimized for 1080p screens. Either way the Microsoft Surface 2 doesn't seem worth the money for the OS that you're getting. I'd much rather go with the Asus T100 with it being full windows 8.1 and being able to fold out like a netbook, plus it's cheaper.

Own the original Surface and so far, I like it. The things I hate about it is the occasional sluggishness when multitasking, the low resolution display(although the color is punchy) and the fact that the kickstand angle is quite steep. Seems that Microsoft listened to feedbacks and the Surface 2 tackles all my issues. Wished it was lighter though. I love the look of the Nokia Lumia 2520 but the lack of kickstand bothers me. Once you have a tablet with a built-in kickstand, you do not one to go back to a tablet that does not have one. Can't even count how many times I've used my Surface with the kickstand.

How to shoot RAW photos with your iPhone

Best Chinese Android smartphones

All content (phone reviews, news, specs, info), design and layouts are Copyright 2001-2016 phoneArena.com. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part or in any form or medium without written permission is prohibited! Privacy . Terms of use . Cookies . Team